President Obama urges young gamers to read more

The world of gaming, as great as it is, has had its fair share of criticism over the years. Issues surrounding health risks of gamers are often pointed out. The amount of time spent playing games seems to be the main concern and several implementations have been put in place to improve this, like enabling parents to have control over the amount of time their children spend on their console.

This still isn’t enough for some parents however with their children continuing to spend countless hours on their consoles. Consoles also come with health and safety warning suggesting rest periods. The news we have today is of President Obama’s urge for parents to take an active role by turning off the video games and encouraging their children to read more.

Barack Obama makes this plea as a parent himself. The announcement was made yesterday at the Father’s Day national address. There, his father-less childhood was discussed and he wanted to put across the point to encourage parents to be there more for their children and gaming was the example he used.

This is not the first time the nation’s gaming habits have been mentioned. Back in 2009 the President raised the issue concerning technology and video games saying they were too much of a distraction for kids during education and in 2008 also mentioned the negative affect some games have on the way people act in society hinting towards GTAIV. He has also done a little praising when it comes to computer games, publicly supporting the scheme that encouraged U.S kids to get into a career of graphics and video game design.

The amount of time spent on playing video games is one of many issues with health risks surrounding them. Extensive research has been put into the affects they can have and have been recorded. These other issues are also associated with children, they include an increased risk of aggressive physical behavior after playing violent games, attention problems such as ADHD or ADD as well as decreased verbal memory performance.

These are among ten different issues listed in an article at Addictionblog which covers the work of researchers from back in 2006. Check out the link to find out what other problems are mentioned. You can also check out CVG’s article for more about what was said by President Obama. Do you agree with the President?